Films by Babak Payami
Now Playing: Wexner Center retrospective, February 18/19
If Payami's 2001 film SECRET BALLOT ever made it to Columbus upon its original release, I missed it, so this retrospective was my first chance to familiarize myself with the work of this filmmaker, acclaimed as a highly promising member of a new generation of Iranian directors. SECRET BALLOT, his best known film, was the first film on the schedule, and to my mind his best to date. The film deals with the difficulty of bringing Western-style democracy to Iran, focusing on two people (an idealistic female election agent and a skeptical soldier) attempting to collect votes on a remote island. For the most part, the people they meet aren't especially eager to participate- a religious man insists that he'll only vote for God, to name one example- and Payami makes the point that democracy's uphill battle in much of the third world has less to do with oppressive regimes than with its unfamiliarity to the common man. The woman handling the ballot box talks over and over again of the importance of voting, but with so many factors working against her- the people don't know anyone on the ballot, the women are being married to far-away men, and even the soldiers would rather guard the shoreline against smugglers- she may as well be talking to herself. In the film's most pointed scene, the election agent stops a young girl from voting because she's 12 (the minimum voting age is 16) and when another woman asks her how it could be right that the girl is already allowed to marry but not yet allowed to vote, the election agent has no response.

Somewhat less interesting is Payami's debut feature ONE MORE DAY (2000), which follows a prisoner who has been permitted day release. He makes a little money by selling stolen medicine from the prison hospital to a black market dealer, but he mostly just wanders around all day riding the bus and drinking tea in a cafe. The central event of his day seems to be his encounters with a woman at the bus stop, with whom he shares some perfunctory conversation before they board the bus. The film contemplates the difficulty of forging relationships in Iran, exascerbated by the extreme situation its protagonist is in. However, Payami's storytelling is ambiguous almost to the point of obtuseness here, and his direction feels more tentative than in his subsequent efforts, though the opening and closing shots are impressively assured.

Much like SECRET BALLOT, Payami's most recent film, THE SILENCE BETWEEN TWO THOUGHTS, takes as its jumping-off point the effect that a potentially civilizing influence has on remote people. Here, the influence is Haji, who lords over a small village using his interpretation of Islam and a small band of gun-toting followers. The central dilemma in the story centers on a young executioner, who is given the responsibility of marrying a young girl accused of a crime because she is a virgin, and then deflowering her before executing her, so that she will not reach paradise. The man is reluctant to carry out this task, and the effects of his indecision spiral outward to all around him- the now-imprisoned girl, the executioner's family (who believe that his current station in life has cursed all of them), and the executioner's teacher and confidante, Moazen, who calls the prayers for the village. However, after the killer extended take that opens the film (nearly ten minutes in duration), the film flounders for most of its length, and it's not as thought-provoking as it would presume to be. As much as Payami tried to downplay the film's backstory during the Q&A (the original negative was confiscated by Iranian censors, and the film's current edit was assembled using video footage), the film is somewhat less compelling than the story of its making.

Ratings-
ONE MORE DAY: **.
SECRET BALLOT: **1/2.
THE SILENCE BETWEEN TWO THOUGHTS: **.